# Base App vs Cherry: trading app or gated rooms

> Base App (Coinbase Wallet again since Sep 10 2026) vs Cherry for community owners: XMTP chat beside a trading wallet against gated, paid, moderated rooms.


Base App vs Cherry compares two apps that put wallet-to-wallet chat next to trading, and on September 10 2026 the Base App side changed its name: Coinbase said Base App, its July 2025 rebrand of Coinbase Wallet, goes back to the Coinbase Wallet name, a change The Block reported as the end of a social experiment that fell short. Cherry (cherry.fun) is a wallet-to-wallet messenger and community app for crypto built by Cherry Technologies, S.A.: you sign in with a wallet, DM any wallet address, and join or create token-gated, NFT-gated, and paid group chats, with no phone, email, or KYC. The verdict for a community owner: Base App is a self-custodial trading wallet with XMTP chat as a side tab, and Coinbase does not advertise token gating, paid memberships, or owner roles for it; Cherry is the room itself, gated on-chain, paid, moderated, and indexable.

## What Base App is

Base App is the name Coinbase gave its self-custodial wallet for fourteen months. Coinbase announced the rebrand on July 16 2025 at its "A New Day One" event, and CoinDesk framed it as a crypto "everything app": trading, USDC payments, a social feed on the Farcaster protocol, chat on the XMTP protocol with AI agents, and mini apps. It opened to everyone on December 17 2025.

The social layer did not hold. Armstrong said in March 2026 that the experiment "didn't quite work"; in July 2026 Base creator Jesse Pollak acknowledged that some social and creator features "had fallen short"; on September 10 2026 the name reverted. The Block reported that day that the app now leads with perpetual futures powered by Hyperliquid, prediction markets, tokenized stocks, and more than 10 networks including Base, Robinhood Chain, Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Monad. The App Store listing, originally Coinbase Wallet's, changed its title the same day from "Base App: Built to Trade" to "Coinbase Wallet: Trade to Win", keeping 4.6 stars from 161K ratings that predate the rebrand. base.app now redirects to wallet.coinbase.com; this page uses the Base App name because most people still know the app by it.

## What Cherry is

Cherry is a wallet-to-wallet messenger and community app: a web app at chat.cherry.fun, iOS and Android apps, and a listing on the Solana dApp Store for the Solana Seeker phone. Your wallet is your account and sign-in is a signed message (Sign In With Solana). Cherry started on Solana and also supports Base, Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, and Robinhood Chain for token-gated chats and wallet DMs, so a group can gate on ERC-20 or NFT holders on Base and you can DM any Ethereum address. Groups are public, private, token-gated, NFT-gated, or paid. Cherry hosts 200+ communities and 1M+ messages as of September 2026. Seeker Club, the largest Seeker owners community, is gated by a `.skr` domain and had 8,637 members on 11 September 2026. Cherry is #1 on the Seeker dApp Store with 4.8 stars from 4,000+ reviews as of September 2026. More on the company on the [about page](https://cherry.fun/learn/about/).

[Seeker Club on Cherry](https://chat.cherry.fun/@seekerclub)

## Base App vs Cherry at a glance

| Row | Base App (Coinbase Wallet) | Cherry |
|---|---|---|
| Chains | More than 10 networks incl. Base, Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monad (Sep 10 2026) | Solana, Base, Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Robinhood Chain |
| Wallet model and sign-in | In-app: Base Account with passkey and email, or a seed phrase | Bring your own (Phantom, Solflare, Backpack, Seed Vault Wallet) and sign a message; no phone, email, or KYC |
| DMs and encryption | XMTP DMs, "encrypted, private and secure" (Sep 10 2026) | End-to-end encrypted DMs keyed from your wallet; group chats are not |
| Group chats and channels | XMTP groups with AI agents; roles not stated | Public, private, and gated groups with owner, admin, moderator, member roles; owner-only channels, free or paid |
| Token and NFT gating | Not stated | Seven rule types checked on-chain, up to 5 per group, re-verified in the background |
| Paid memberships | Not stated | 0.0001 to 100 SOL one-time, or 1 to 10,000 USDC per period |
| In-chat trading | Swaps, limit orders, perps; shared and agent trades in chat (Dec 2025) | $TICKER cards, Jupiter Swap on web, call-bot leaderboard, OTC escrow on mobile |
| Prediction markets and perps | Perps powered by Hyperliquid, prediction markets, tokenized stocks (Sep 10 2026) | Via mini apps: Polymarket for prediction markets, Trading Terminal for perps and stocks |
| Bots and API | XMTP SDKs for agents; third-party group API not stated | Cherry API and bots, free |
| Mini apps | Farcaster standard with MiniKit; Solana or Seeker reach not stated | Mini App SDK, also inside Solflare and SeekerGram |
| Embeddable elsewhere | Not stated | Chat Embed SDK for any site or dApp, free |
| Fees to owners | No paid communities stated; swap fee inside the quote, up to 1% (2026 reviews) | Free; owner keeps 70% of paid-community payments as of 10 September 2026 |
| Moderation tools | Spam filtering and approval management (2026 reviews); community moderation not stated | Roles, kick, ban, mute, word blacklist, wallet-age gate |
| Operator and reach | Coinbase (Nasdaq: COIN); iOS, Android, web, extension | Cherry Technologies, S.A.; iOS, Android, web, Solana dApp Store |

## Identity and onboarding

Base App's account is a wallet it creates for you: a Base Account opened with a passkey and an email address, or a legacy seed-phrase wallet. CryptoSlate's review, updated July 24 2026, calls the passkey path "the gentlest entry into real self-custody", a real advantage with members who have never held a seed phrase. The cost is that identity lives inside the app: a Phantom or MetaMask wallet cannot sign in to Base App chat as itself, and XMTP's documentation says a recipient needs an XMTP inbox before a message can reach them.

On Cherry the wallet your holders already keep their bags in is the account. A member connects Phantom, Solflare, Backpack, or a Seeker's Seed Vault Wallet, signs one message, and is in, with their `.sol`, `.skr`, or AllDomains name as the display name. A holder who has never opened Cherry can still be DMed by address, and the conversation waits for them (see [DM a wallet address](https://cherry.fun/learn/features/dm-a-wallet-address/)). There is no passkey path and no email recovery: lose the wallet and the Cherry account goes with it.

## Gating, paid access, and who owns the room

As of September 10 2026, Coinbase does not advertise token gating, NFT gating, paid membership, owner or moderator roles, join requests, bans, or public community pages for Base App group chats. XMTP's "group chats that can pool capital, vote, and act" describes what members do inside a chat, not who gets in.

On Cherry the room is the product. A group combines up to five rules with all-or-any logic across seven types Cherry checks on-chain itself: token balance (SPL, Token-2022, ERC-20, BEP-20), NFT collection, Metaplex Core collection, domain ownership (`.sol`, `.skr`, AllDomains), a wallet balance or trading-volume threshold, wallet app, and payment. Members of gated public groups are re-verified in the background, so selling below the threshold ends access; an owner's invite skips the holdings check but never the payment. Nobody DMs your members a verify link. The mechanics are on the [token-gated chat](https://cherry.fun/learn/features/token-gated-chat/) and [NFT-gated chat](https://cherry.fun/learn/features/nft-gated-chat/) pages.

Paid access has two shapes, both on the [paid communities and channels](https://cherry.fun/learn/features/paid-communities-and-channels/) page. A one-time entry fee of 0.0001 to 100 SOL settles in one transaction with two legs: 70% to the owner's wallet and 30% to the Cherry treasury, as of 10 September 2026. Recurring USDC memberships bill daily, weekly, or monthly, from 1 to 10,000 USDC per period, and a failed pull paywalls the member until they renew. A paid group is always public, so its storefront carries the price, the rules, and reviews only active members can leave. SNS Club is a domain-gated room with such a page: 1,455 `.sol` holders on 11 September 2026.

[SNS Club on Cherry](https://chat.cherry.fun/@sns)

## Chat, DMs, and encryption

This is the row where Base App's claim is stronger than Cherry's, and it should be said plainly. Base App chat runs on XMTP, whose group messaging uses Messaging Layer Security; XMTP says NCC Group assessed LibXMTP and its MLS use in December 2024. On September 10 2026 the App Store listing for the Base App build read "DMs, group chats, and AI agents - all encrypted, private and secure". Coinbase has not said whether chat survives the rename: the Coinbase Wallet listing drops chat from its description, while its age rating still lists "Messaging and Chat".

Cherry's DMs are end-to-end encrypted with keys derived from your wallet signature, and you can DM any wallet address. Cherry's group chats are not end-to-end encrypted, by design: moderators read what they moderate, the call bot reads token calls for its leaderboard, and bots act on messages through the API.

## Trading and money features

Trading is where Base App has the most product, and after September 10 2026 it is the product: swaps across Base, Solana, Robinhood Chain, BNB, Ethereum, and Monad, perps powered by Hyperliquid, limit orders, and deposits by Apple Pay, bank, or card. Decrypt reported on August 19 2026 that the perps are not offered in the US, UK, or Canada. Reviewers say the swap fee sits inside the quoted rate with no separate line item: Coin Bureau put it at up to 1% plus aggregator fees, gas, and slippage on September 3 2026, and CryptoSlate's review, updated July 24 2026, describes the same built-in fee.

Cherry's trading lives inside the conversation. Type `$TICKER` or paste a contract address and the composer autocompletes the token through Jupiter token search; the message renders a card with price and market cap, and Buy opens a Jupiter Swap modal on web (on iOS, Swap and Buy are outbound links, per App Store rules). A trade a member shares can be copied in one tap through the same flow. Perps and tokenized stocks are in the Trading Terminal mini app at [chat.cherry.fun/@trade](https://chat.cherry.fun/@trade) (160 members on 11 September 2026), prediction markets in the Polymarket mini app at [chat.cherry.fun/@predict](https://chat.cherry.fun/@predict) (978 members that day). OTC deals run in the Cherry mobile app, inside the chat: both sides fund an escrow program that settles when both legs are funded, and Cherry takes no fee.

## Developer surface and distribution

Base App's mini apps follow the Farcaster mini-app standard and Coinbase's MiniKit tooling, render in the feed, and number in the "hundreds", according to a 2026 Datawallet explainer; chat agents are built with XMTP's SDKs. Coinbase does not advertise a way for an owner to manage a Base App group from their own backend, drop a Base App room into their own site, or reach Solana Seeker users through it.

The [Mini App SDK](https://cherry.fun/learn/features/mini-apps/) runs web apps inside Cherry chats with the user's wallet and room context, and as of September 2026 it also runs inside Solflare, Mattle.fun, and SeekerGram. The [Chat Embed SDK](https://cherry.fun/learn/features/embeddable-chat/) drops a Cherry room into any website or dApp, and every embed auto-creates a community inside Cherry. Developers can also manage groups from their own backend and run bots with their own identity in the room through the Cherry API. All of these developer tools are free. One gap to weigh: Base App reaches Bitcoin, Monad, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, and Avalanche, none of which Cherry supports.

## Choose Base App if, choose Cherry if

Choose Base App (Coinbase Wallet) if:

- Your members mainly trade, across more than ten networks, with perps, prediction markets, and tokenized stocks from one wallet.
- A passkey and email sign-up suits them better than bringing an existing wallet.
- End-to-end encrypted group chats are a hard requirement, or your partners want a Nasdaq-listed operator.

Choose Cherry if:

- You need a room with an owner: gating by a token, an NFT collection, a domain, or a wallet threshold, re-verified in the background.
- You want to charge for entry in SOL or USDC, with a public storefront and member reviews.
- Your holders keep their bags in Phantom, Solflare, or a Seeker's Seed Vault Wallet, and you want the room reachable from your own site or bot.

To try the Cherry side, create a group at [chat.cherry.fun](https://chat.cherry.fun), add a gating rule or a price, and share the @handle. If the feed was what you liked, the [Farcaster comparison](https://cherry.fun/learn/compare/cherry-vs-farcaster/) covers the protocol behind it and the [Base App alternatives](https://cherry.fun/learn/compare/base-app-alternatives/) roundup covers the field.

## FAQ

### What is Base App?

Base App is the name Coinbase gave its self-custodial Coinbase Wallet on July 16 2025, relaunching it as an everything app: trading, USDC payments, a Farcaster-protocol feed, XMTP chat, and mini apps. On September 10 2026 Coinbase said the app goes back to the Coinbase Wallet name, led by perps, prediction markets, and tokenized stocks.

### Is Base App the same as Coinbase Wallet?

Yes, one app with two names. On September 10 2026 the same App Store listing changed its title from "Base App: Built to Trade" to "Coinbase Wallet: Trade to Win", keeping its 4.6 stars from 161K ratings.

### Is Base App safe?

Base App is self-custodial, so Coinbase does not hold your keys, and Coinbase is a Nasdaq-listed company. CryptoSlate's review, updated July 24 2026, notes that the consumer app is closed source and that Coinbase's May 2025 exchange data breach feeds impersonation scams aimed at wallet users. That breach hit the exchange, not the wallet.

### What are Base App's fees?

Reviewers say the swap fee is built into the quoted rate, with no separate line item. Coin Bureau put it at up to 1% on top of gas, aggregator fees, and slippage on September 3 2026, and CryptoSlate's review, updated July 24 2026, describes the same built-in fee. Reviewers put cash-out through Coinbase.com at about 2 to 3%. These are reviewer figures, so check Coinbase's own fee disclosures before relying on them.

### Does Base App have messaging and group chats?

Base App shipped DMs, group chats, and AI agents on the XMTP protocol, and its App Store listing on September 10 2026 called them encrypted, private, and secure. Coinbase has not said whether chat survives the rename: the renamed listing drops chat from its description, while its age rating still lists "Messaging and Chat".

### Can I run a token-gated group chat on Base App?

Coinbase had not announced such a feature for Base App group chats as of September 10 2026. Cherry checks gating on-chain itself, with seven rule types including ERC-20 and NFT holders on Base, plus paid entry in SOL or USDC.

## Sources

- [The Block, "Coinbase rebrands Base App back to Coinbase Wallet", 10 September 2026](https://www.theblock.co/news/defi/2026-09-10-coinbase-rebrands-base-app-back-to-coinbase-wallet-after-just-over-a-year-as-social-experiment-falls-short-414115)
- [Decrypt, "Coinbase Wallet rebrands to chase 'anything, anywhere' trading", 10 September 2026](https://decrypt.co/377601/coinbase-wallet-rebrand-robinhood-chain)
- [Decrypt, "Coinbase adds 50x crypto perps to Base App through Hyperliquid", 19 August 2026](https://decrypt.co/375921/coinbase-50x-crypto-perps-base-app-hyperliquid)
- [CoinDesk, "Coinbase Wallet becomes Base App in major rebrand", 17 July 2025](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/07/17/coinbase-wallet-becomes-base-app-in-major-rebrand)
- [XMTP July 2025 community update, 18 July 2025](https://blog.xmtp.org/xmtp-july-2025-community-update/)
- [Shane Mac, "Base App is live for everyone, secured by XMTP", 17 December 2025](https://blog.shanemac.com/base-app-by-coinbase-is-live-for-everyone-secured-by-xmtp-create-earn-and-trade-all-in-chat/)
- [XMTP documentation FAQ](https://docs.xmtp.org/chat-apps/intro/faq)
- [Coinbase Wallet on the App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/base-app-built-to-trade/id1278383455)
- [Coinbase Wallet](https://wallet.coinbase.com/)
- [CryptoSlate, "Base Wallet review", updated 24 July 2026](https://cryptoslate.com/crypto-wallets/base-wallet-review/)
- [Coin Bureau, "Coinbase Wallet review", 3 September 2026](https://coinbureau.com/review/coinbase-wallet-review)
- [Datawallet, "Farcaster explained", 2026](https://www.datawallet.com/crypto/farcaster-explained)
- [Cherry](https://cherry.fun)
- [Seeker Club on Cherry](https://chat.cherry.fun/@seekerclub)
- [SNS Club on Cherry](https://chat.cherry.fun/@sns)
- [Trading Terminal mini app on Cherry](https://chat.cherry.fun/@trade)
- [Polymarket mini app on Cherry](https://chat.cherry.fun/@predict)
- [Cherry developer docs](https://portal.cherry.fun/docs)